


Superhero

by BrightLotusMoon



Series: Superheroes [2]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: ADHD Mikey, All the Turtles are autistic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Donnie, Autistic Mikey, Psychic Mikey, everyone is neurodivergent, psionic mikey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24986539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightLotusMoon/pseuds/BrightLotusMoon
Summary: This was initially a random oneshot that I put into Quantum Entanglement that's now become part of its own series.
Series: Superheroes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808626
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Superhero

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially a random oneshot that I put into Quantum Entanglement that's now become part of its own series.

Donatello was dangerous. It was something Mikey always knew and never forgot, but sometimes it still surprised him. 

Being both ninja and eclectic scientist seemed to make Donnie a superhero, although the last time Mikey brought that up, Don just grinned and waved it off as another comic book fantasy. 

"Ugh, you like fantasy too, dork," Mikey had huffed under his breath. 

Michelangelo guessed he'd never truly known how dangerous until Don saved his life one February day, from a bizarre new predator in the sewers. 

They had argued. Mikey had wanted to drag Donnie out of the lab, Donnie had wanted to finish some work. Raph hollered at them both. Don literally shoved Mikey out of the lab. Leonardo thrust a skateboard into Mike's hands and told him to get some exercise. 

Rude. Mikey hid his deep hurt under a scowl, trotting out of the lair. 

Deciding to take a whole new path down tunnels might've not been a good idea, but his head was cloudy, his emotions clogged and writhing behind pain and frustration. 

This new tunnel was freezing and its atmosphere purred with supernatural energy. Mikey rarely bragged about his empathic clairvoyance, built up during his teens after that Ninja Tribunal deal, content to bother his family with being the Turtle Titan and - shout it! - Battle Nexus Champion. The psychic stuff was for hero work, even though it came in handier with ninja stuff. It rose up from the depths of his limbic system and swept across his mind, drawing in the abstract strangeness of the foreign tunnel and making him pause. There was something alive down here. Sentient. 

Intelligent. 

Michelangelo had a bright yellow flash of warning in his head a second before something warm crashed into him, knocking him off his board. 

The back of his head and the lip of his shell hit the ground first, straining muscles in his neck and shoulders. Consciousness flickered as vertigo struck, and that was all it took for his "secondary" nervous system - the newly powerful Chi that ran through his spiritual body and fueled his ESP - to kick in and take over. He found himself halfway conscious and halfway in the astral plane, with a reptilian beast the size of a wolf pinning him, growling down into his face.

"Guess I stumbled into prime territory," Mikey whispered, slowly moving backward while projecting an aura of calm. The ground was like ice. The creature must have a unique physiology to live like this-

His senses bounced around. Oh. It had fur. It gave off heat. 

It was a mutant, his psychic mind supplied helpfully. 

"Donnie would get a kick out of this…"

He'd scooted all the way against a wall, when the creature shook its head and snapped at the air. It looked like a komodo dragon crossed with a gray fox. It turned narrowed yellow eyes up to him, licked its jaw, and sprung forward, claws gleaming. 

Michelangelo barely had time to yell, and then pain speared him across his plastron and the world whited out. 

His spiritual body fell unguarded into space. 

-

Mikey became aware of himself floating in a world of whiteness, stripes of color fluttering around. He felt completely stripped and realized he wasn't in his body. 

"The lair," he murmured. "I need to get to the lair. I need to tell Donnie."

The universe sped towards him and folded. Don had talked about how it worked, after they had read books about tesseracts that April had given Mikey to feed his need for fantasy. Mike opened his mind and saw the lab, saw his exhausted brother slumped in his desk chair, massaging his head. 

"Shouldn't have yelled at him, why did I actually push him? I just… I shoved him, I hurt his feelings… "

Mikey moved toward him. "It's okay, I forgive you."

Don inhaled sharply and looked right at him. "Mikey… you're astral projecting." He seemed awed.

Mike's form faded slightly, a deep full pain bursting from somewhere and manifesting as red slashes on his spirit body. "Don... something bad happened. I need you. I need-"

Pain exploded.

Pain.

He screamed. Donnie screamed. Everything went black and he felt like he was being thrust backwards through a vaccuum. 

There was agony. His plastron felt cracked open, flesh torn. He couldn't see. Voices. Donnie. Donnie sounded furious. Donnie's chi was dark and blazing and he could sense danger. Donatello was fighting something, beating it back. 

Michelangelo slipped down into nothingness.

-

Mikey was dreaming.

He watched as Don ran out of the lab yelling Mikey's name, startling Leo and Raph. Don grabbed a duffel bag and led them to a Sewer Slider. "Mikey astral projected, he's hurt, I've got his signal!"

They found the tunnel, the creature, they battled it off Mikey who was in a pool of blood. Don's face twisted in a rage and his bo connected with the monster until it was unconscious. Or dead. Its chi had gone dark.

Raphael had set the duffel next to Mikey and was applying gauze that soaked red. His entire plastron was red.

Leonardo assisted, his chi calm but tight. "This is the first time he's astral projected like this, isn't it. It appears it takes a severe emotional push. All that training and all it took was a mental emergency." His mouth quirked up. Leo rambled when he was scared sometimes, worse than Don.

Donnie deemed him ready to be moved, then easily scooped him into a bridal carry, which made Raph raise an eyeridge. "Been lifting engine blocks, man?"

Donnie winked. "Yes, actually. I got inspired by your need to protect and shield us. I'd rather carry your weights than mine. So would Mike, no matter how much I beg him to do self care."

They carefully settled Mikey's body into the vehicle between Leo and Raph. Donnie drove intensely, still looking enraged and upset. Michelangelo's astral form folded and appeared in the in infirmary. He looked at himself on the medical bed, finally realizing how the pain connected. His brothers worked quietly, their chi tight and flickering with deep worry. Mikey just stared at his body, skin grayish, blood pumping with alarming speed.

He recalled Donnie's rage, sensed it now as a curre under his chi fueling him. Mikey gently pulled on their mental connection, that unique link he had only with Donnie, and pushed the power of their love into his weakening body, to slow the bleeding, to speed the healing. Donatello's fury, the science in his brain pushing every action and reaction, the logic and reason nudging aside emotion enough to work, to be dangerous.

The rational terror of losing his best friend.

The energy in the air rippled and Mike's chi responded by humming loudly until he shivered, his form turning misty and cold. He let himself fall back and be plunged into white silence.

-

And after a while, he opened his eyes.

Mike didn't realize he was in his body for a few seconds, and didn't register the voice of Donnie, the hands of Donnie, more frantic as the milliseconds ticked.

The pain struck, like a flash flood through the painkillers. His mouth opened and his throat vibrated with a wheezing whimper.

He tried to cough.

Someone lifted his head and then a straw slipped into his mouth. Reflexes ordered him to suck, and the cool water was like a salve. He hummed his appreciation.

When the water was gone, he sighed and finally focused.

"Can you hear me?"

He smiled, hummed again. "Yeah, Don, jus' needed a sec."

"Too much astral travel, huh?"

"You know me, I'm a curious cat."

Donatello grinned down at him. "You must be satisfied then, because you're back."

Mikey chuckled dryly, then coughed. There was the patter of desperate feet.

"Is he awake? Mikey! Fuck, you scared the shit out of us."

A gentle hand on his head. "Gods, Mikey, it is good to see your eyes open."

Leo hadn't even reprimanded Raph for cursing. It must have been bad. Really bad.

Don's hands were running along his torso. "... probably did some psychic healing. We all donated blood but your body has been recovering faster than I'd anticipated. It's amazing, Mikey, you're amazing."

Raph gave a low chuckle, but his voice was wet and cracked. "Knew you were always holding back."

Leo had taken a seat next to his head, palm still pressed to his forehead. "You've been in a coma for three days but I've sensed you floating around. Little trickster. You'll run spiritual circles around us soon."

Michelangelo soaked up the praise and it settled into the grooves of his pain like opium. That was all he ever asked for. After the death of Master Splinter, his need for emotional validation had grown, and so had his maturity. Meditation, ADHD style, had let him finally uncover that surprising psychic force from deep within, something that not even The Ancient One had realized. All he'd wanted was to be acknowledged. His own brain wiring had done that, after nearly two decades of mutation. The side effects of migraines and seizures were vaguely manageable. They kept in contact with Fugitoid who helped provide treatments. Life had calmed down and intensified and he kept riding its wave to stay in the flow, something his brothers were finally realizing fully.

His fire had been noticed. His light was shining through the dark. He was the beacon.

"Ey, Donnie?" he whispered, still floating on love.

"I'm here, Mike."

"You're still a superhero."

A soft laugh. "Get your rest, bro, I'll be testing that super brain of yours later."

"Of course you will." Mikey just smiled and reached for his hands, which Donnie grabbed and squeezed, tickling his fingertips along the palms like a secret code.

Dorks.


End file.
